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CSP Chile 2012 Season Finale

The last event of CSP 2012 season took place in Hacienda Tobalaba, Santiago, right at the foot of the snow covered peaks of the Cordillera de los Andes in Chile. The promoters Claudio Salinas and Miguel Lobos, owners of the field 2Nel and ZPTV, assembled 2 fields for this great event that gathered players from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay. To complete the Chilean cold, it had been raining for a week and the fields had a thin layer of mud on the grass. As everything has two sides, the good thing was that due to the “bad” weather, the snow on the mountains was thick and the players that planed to go skiing after the tournament would have a very good time. I must confess that only by looking at those mountains I felt colder.

The brand new Sup’Air Ball field arrived in Chile 3 days before the tournament. Everything was neat: the nets, fields, grandstands, staging area, air in the 4 pits and outside them, food and facilities. A DJ called the teams and commented on the games making it all a lot more interesting to the public.

On Friday afternoon PSP ref David Baker gave an intensive clinic to the local referees to improve their efficiency on the games while several teams walked the fields and planed their strategies. On that same day we learned that 5 teams that were coming by car from Mendoza, Argentina, were trapped on the highway that crosses the mountains due to the heavy snow storms and there was no clue as to when the road would be opened. Thus we decided to have a plan B in case they arrived too late for their games… Of course we would never tell them they would not play, as those players had to get permits in their jobs were spending a lot of money, and effort to go to the tournament.

On Saturday the field was busy since very early in the morning. PSP Tom Cole was there to do the APPA registrations and scores. It was his first time and he was kind of lost in the beginning, but as the games went on he started to feel more at easy. The Argentinean teams had not shown up but we were told that the road would probably open later that day. As we had a huge amount of games to make in 2 fields on the weekend, we rearranged the schedule to fill the gaps left by the missing teams so that we would not waste any minute. All Novice (D-5) teams played in field 2 and Amateurs (D-4) played both fields and the Open division played all games in field 1. Towards the end of the afternoon 2 Argentineans teams arrived and practically went directly to the field the other 3 teams arrived only late at night and would play all their games on Sunday.

On Sunday we started even earlier and our bones ached from the cold. All teams were present, except for team La Maja, the Bolivian team that was participating in CSP for the first time. One of the Bolivian players got very sick during the night and they were still in hospital with the boys.

The very young boys of the Ecuadorian team Temerarios were leading the prelims of the Novice division followed closely by Gamma from Argentina, with the same amount of points, changing only the Margin of Victory. Of the 13 teams of this division, 4 made it to the semis: Gamma, Temerarios, Pop and Weichafe.

In the Amateur division eight teams went to the quarter finals: the Chilean Dark Blast and the Brazilians Hellcife and Redpill in a tie at the first place, followed by the Peruvian Verdugos, the Uruguayans Overdose, Mercenarios Black from Brazil, GoD from Chile and the also Brazilian Lethal. The four teams that made it to the semis were Dark Blast, Hellcife, Redpill and Verdugos.

The teams from Chile dominated the Open division with very good games. The big question mark was over team ABC Paradise, formed by Marcelo Prieto and his son Benjamin from Chile, Luis Cassano and Nicolas Vasquez from Argentina, Osvaldo Lopes and Felipe Gasman from Brazil… With such an international mix, nobody could foresee what would happen, but the odd team played so well that went to the semis along with Madbox, Shinigami and Sensou, all from Chile.

THE FINALS!!! The Novice Weichafe conquered the third place defeating Pop. Gamma won the game against Temerarios and was the champion in the Novice division.

In the Amateur division Redpill lost the game with Verdugos that got the third place while the Brazilian Hellcife defeated Gamma and won the Champion trophy.

The Finals of the Open division couldn’t have been more thrilling! Shinigami bit Sensou 3 x 1 and got third place. ABC Paradise x Madbox ended the regular time in a tie and proceeded to the Overtime game… no time limit. That was a nervous game. The public making a big fuss on the grand stands while the two teams measured their forces in the last attempt to win… the victory of team ABC Paradise came when the sun was starting to hide behind the majestic mountains.

It was a fantastic experience to participate in the biggest tournament that ever happened in South America. I hope it was the first of many bigger and bigger ones.

The trophies and cash prizes were given under no sun light, in a ceremony coordinated by Freddy, the DJ. As the CSP Chile awards were all delivered.

Unfortunately due to import problems in Colombia the last tournament had to be cancelled. The teams that won the circuit would have been the same, anyway, but we certainly had about 30 teams less, which is such a pitty. There are very good teams in that beautiful country that would have our CSP even greater. So, as the champions of the 3 divisions were there, we started to give the prizes of the 2012 South American Champions; the teams that got first places in the year ranking in their divisions:

- South American Champion – Open – Team Mercenarios (Brazil – 4 times South American champion)- South American Champion – Amateur – Team Verdugos (Peru)- South American Champion – Novice – Team Temerarios (Ecuador)

Mercenários Paintball Store has created CSP in 2005 when in most countries there were no speedball teams at all. We’ve been growing fast, learning from our mistakes, correcting the flaws and making the good points stronger, training our refs so that they can help us make our tournaments better and better, gaining the respect and confidence of the players that honor us with their presences and the sponsors that have always trusted us making it possible to make CSP. We regret the canceling of CSP Colombia, and we will start now to work on it so that this great country can be back to CSP next year.